Dr. Williams has expertise in the areas of autism and developmental language disorders. She is associated with the Autism Research Program at the University of Pittsburgh and the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Williams' research focuses on cognitive and linguistic processing in autism using functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral methodology.

Dr. Williams is a Board Recognized Specialist in Child Language and a certified speech-language pathologist with extensive clinical experience with children and adults with autism and other developmental disorders with a wide range of language abilities. She has worked in early intervention programs, preschool programs, community agencies, pediatric hospitals, and university clinics. As Program Director of the Child Language Clinic at Duquesne, Dr. Williams coordinates clinical services for children with a variety of language problems and teaches the language disorders coursework in the Department.

Williams, D.L., Carter, E.J., Lehman, J., & Minshew, N.J. (2012). Making tough decisions: The neural correlates of categorization in children with and without autism. International Meeting for Autism Research, Toronto, Canada.